Have you been baking your little heart out this holiday season? I love seeing cookie and baked good recipes all over (what can I say, sweets make me happy!) and I’ve bookmarked dozens of them over the past month or so. This past Sunday was the first time this month that I’ve actually baked. A tragedy really but hey, better late than never. I learned how to make toffee too and dare I say… it waslife changing!

Now that I know how easy it is, there will be lots and lots of toffee in my future. And the future of my family and friends. Prepare yourself peeps. If you know me, there will be toffee coming your way at some point in your life. Nothing to complain about, that’s for sure.

So the toffee making process was born from the desire to make the chocolate almond saltine toffee recipe from Food & Wine. I’ve had saltine bark before (a.k.a crack) but this was my first time making my own. Toffee is basically butter (lots of it), sugar (yup, lots of it too), and corn syrup boiled together until it reaches 300* (a candy thermometer is very key here!!). Once these 3 simple ingredients turn into a golden brown syrupy goodness, you poor it into a container (in this case, over saltine crackers actually) and then cool it. After 15 minutes in the freezer, you have a sweet crunchy candy. Man, it’s good!

Fun fact: Our wedding favors were sweet sloops which are little sailboat shaped toffee candies dipped in i2 kinds of chocolate and pecan crumbs. Awesomeness in a pretty package. So are these:

Have you ever made toffee? Other things that got me as giddy (“life changing” was also possibly mentioned in relevant posts): making marshmallows, making challah bread, making pretzel sandwich buns, Italian bread, and making ricotta. I think it’s something about demystifying some of my favorite foods, as well as the pride that comes from turning a handful of ingredients into a completely different form of deliciousness. Yup, that’s it.

PS – Other baked goods created during this baking extravaganza (thanks, Tiffany, for hosting!)…

H loves! Sorry for disappearing for a few days. I’ve been a bit distracted. Tomorrow Adam and I are also going on vacation to Washington DC. Let me know if you have any recommendations for us! We’ve had no time to plan anything so it’s going to be interesting for sure…